Marcus said he thinks many, or possibly all, animals can do some variable binding, and he cited Randy Gallistel's work on ant navigation as an example.

A factual claim about what Marcus said in 2025. True: a recording or transcript from 2025 (e.g., an interview or podcast) shows Marcus saying that many, or possibly all, animals can do some variable binding, and citing Randy Gallistel's work on ant navigation as an example. Mostly true: he says this, but the citation detail differs slightly (e.g., a different insect, or Gallistel cited on navigation generally). Mixed: he makes the variable-binding statement but does not cite Gallistel or ant navigation, or the reverse. Mostly false: the statement is substantially different (e.g., he limits variable binding to humans or primates), with only a loose connection. False: the transcript shows he said something contrary. Whether animals in fact do variable binding is not being judged.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 How o3 and Grok 4 Accidentally Vindicated Neurosymbolic AI Gary Marcus Substack (Marcus's own newsletter) · 13 July 2025 Own record

   “Much of my empirical work as a cognitive scientist went toward showing that humans, even infants, could do something analogously algebraic”

2. E2 Generative AI’s crippling and widespread failure to induce robust models of the world Substack (garymarcus.substack.com) · 28 June 2025 Own record

   “Another of my heroes, the cognitive psychologist Randy Gallistel, has written extensively about how even some of the simplest animals, like ants, use cognitive models, which they regularly update, in tasks such as navigation.”

3. E3 Generative AI’s crippling and widespread failure to induce robust models of the world Substack (garymarcus.substack.com) · 28 June 2025 Own record

   “An ant uses variables (in the algebraic/computer science sense) to maintain a readout of its location, even as as it wanders, constantly updated, so that it can directly return to its home.”

The criteria call for a 2025 recording or transcript of Marcus saying that many, or possibly all, animals can do variable binding, while citing Randy Gallistel's work on ant navigation. None of the evidence is such a recording or transcript, and none contains the quoted remark. E2 and E3, posts on Marcus's own Substack from June 2025, show him citing Gallistel's work on ants navigating with cognitive models, and saying that ants use variables to track their location. But they do not say that many or all animals can do variable binding. Since the only support is Marcus's own blog posts, and they only partly match the claim, the evidence does not settle what he said in the recording.